Lifepod

Eight people on a survival pod. They bicker. Supplies run low. They bicker some more. They're overly dramatic. Poor script. Bad acting. The end. There are two types of sci-fi B movies: it's so bad it good and it's just bad. This one is the later.

The story is rather formula: take a bunch of different people and lock them up somewhere, put them in some sort of danger and see what happens (for instance: Night of the living dead, Das Boot, Pitch Black). Nothing new here. But the story unfolds rather nicely, with a neat twist towards the end. The acting is quite good and the atmosphere is tense, dense and thrilling. Major dissapointment are the special f/x, which look like the remains from a 50's cheap sci-fil flick. They add a touch of uncredibility to the all thing. Another letdown is the obligatory happy ending, which seems very out of place here. All in all this is a pretty good movie, which could (and should) have been much better - technically speaking.

Ever heard of Alfred Hitchcock´s Lifeboat from 1944? This is the same story only in space. It all begins with a sabotage on big passenger spaceship. It blows up and there are only like 10 survivors who luckily (?) got on the lifepod. And there more trouble begins. They are not able to contact the "starfleet" so they have no one to rescue them. But the most terrifying thing is that they find out that the person who sabotage the passenger ship is someone of them on the lifepod. But who is it? Very thrilling, guaranteed to make you sweat a whole lot. The grade: 9/10

Claustrophobic talkathon. Characters are thrown together and then attempt to talk each other to death. It's the well worn crisis of the minute formula. If someone isn't dying, they are talking. It's pretty difficult to maintain interest when most of the conversations are sleep inducing drivel. Crawling around the escape pod with a constantly shaking camera adds nausea to the mix. Make no mistake, this is not "Lifeboat" in outer space. What it is, is a mini budget time waster for the cable networks to endlessly play. Admirers of Ron Silver and Robert Loggia should definitely look elsewhere, as this film gives them nothing to work with. Special mention must be made of the special effects, which are not even of video game caliber. Avoid. - MERK

We could go endlessly to find all the reasons why this B movie is bad (some call it trash!). However, the basic storyline is good and sufficient action is there to avoid it being boring. It also is a remake of the 1981 Lifepod.

For another remake, this could be done. Take the script and invest in more special effects, good CG scenery for the spaceship, the lifepod and all electronics on board. The script can be further expanded with an additional pod surviving the spaceship destruction. Errors can be easily corrected (spaceship explosion, icing through comet tail and more). Then we have the actors, not great but not too bad. Their characters could be far better defined for a more credible behavior.

Anybody interested?